For this week’s season premiere of 60 Mins, correspondent Cecilia Vega and a manufacturing workforce supposed to record on tensions between China and the Philippines within the South China Sea. They didn’t be expecting to finally end up in the course of a global incident themselves, seeing China’s intimidation techniques first-hand. The plan was once for the 60 Mins workforce to accompany the Philippine Coast Guard on a regimen challenge to resupply its ships and stations. Vega and workforce boarded the Cape Engaño, a Philippine Coast Guard send, round 8 p.m. and ready for his or her travel to Sabina Shoal, an atoll that lies 93 miles west of the Philippine province of Palawan. Round 4 a.m. the following day, the 60 Mins workforce was once woken up via a noisy bang, adopted via an alarm. A Chinese language send had rammed the Cape Engaño, the Philippine team knowledgeable them, telling them to place on lifestyles jackets and keep put inside of their cabins.
As 60 Mins manufacturers Andy Courtroom and Jacqueline Williams assessed the placement, a number of imaginable situations got here to their minds. “Are we taking over water? Are we going to sink out right here in the course of the South China Sea?” Williams remembers pondering. “I am seeing Coast Guard staff status via the door, guarding the door. So we are pondering, ‘Are the Chinese language about to board our send?'”
At the recommendation of veteran 60 Mins cameraman Don Lee, the team grabbed their passports and made a plan to safe the pictures they’d been taking pictures on board, within the match that Chinese language sailors did board the Cape Engaño and tried to take the cameras’ virtual reminiscence playing cards. “We needed to be sure that after we were given off that send, that we had that pictures and shall we display the arena what it was once that we had been seeing,” Williams mentioned. As soon as again on deck, the 60 Mins team noticed the three-and-a-half-foot hollow torn into the Cape Engaño’s hull. As sunlight dawned, additionally they noticed what number of Chinese language ships surrounded the Philippine send, bows pointed at it. All the way through the standoff, the team aboard the Cape Engaño was once not able to get right of entry to web or cellular provider, and the Filipinos mentioned it was once most probably since the Chinese language had been jamming their communications. “I have been running for this display for a very long time,” Courtroom mentioned. “I have been in numerous scenarios that had been unhealthy and irritating by hook or by crook. I don’t believe I have ever felt this susceptible. You are utterly remoted in the market. You are utterly surrounded.”
Because the Filipinos attempted to barter some way out, they had been compelled to desert the primary forestall on their resupply challenge. The incident was once one of the between China and the Philippines all the way through expanding tensions within the final two years. A world tribunal on the Hague in 2016 outlined the Philippines’ unique financial zone, or EEZ, a 200-mile house that incorporates Sabina Shoal and the realm the place the Cape Engaño was once rammed. China does now not acknowledge the ruling and continues to say sovereignty over many of the South China Sea, by which greater than $3 trillion value of world business passes yearly.Over the last few months, China has rammed Philippine boats, sprayed them with water cannons, and blocked their protected passage throughout the Philippine EEZ. The incident 60 Mins witnessed at the Cape Engaño signaled a motion of the struggle nearer to the Philippine shore than ever earlier than.China has blamed the Philippines for the irritating occasions at sea. Inside of hours of the ramming of the Cape Engaño, the Chinese language publicized their very own model of occasions. It was once the Filipinos, they mentioned in a broadcast video, who rammed the Chinese language Coast Guard send. The video highlighted the faces of the 60 Mins team on deck, accusing them of getting used as a part of a Philippine propaganda marketing campaign. “The concept that the Filipinos at 4 within the morning may just bring to mind not anything higher to do than to ram a far higher Coast Guard vessel, a vessel just about two times their measurement, turns out somewhat improbable to me,” 60 Mins manufacturer Andy Courtroom mentioned. In step with correspondent Cecilia Vega, the 60 Mins workforce was once there merely to report what they witnessed and to turn the arena what the Filipinos robotically revel in.”The intimidation may be very actual while you see it up shut,” she mentioned. “What you additionally see, and it takes going in the market to peer this for your self, is solely how unstable this case is.”
The video above was once produced via Brit McCandless Farmer and edited via Scott Rosann.
Extra from CBS Information
Brit McCandless Farmer
Brit McCandless Farmer is a virtual manufacturer for 60 Mins, the place her paintings has been identified via the Webby, Gracie, and Television tube Awards. Up to now, Brit labored on the CBS Weekend Night Information, CBS This Morning, The Gentleman Report, and ABC Information.
